Daily Inspiration: Meet Ava Beathard

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ava Beathard.

Hi Ava, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
Well, I got a ukulele in middle school, and shortly after that, I began learning songs and writing my own music. I started a YouTube channel called “heyitsava” where I would post the covers I learned and the songs I wrote, just for fun. Eventually, I got a guitar and began doing the same with that. My YouTube channel began to grow bigger and bigger as I would post more and more often. After two years of posting videos, my “The Night We Met” cover blew up and over the course of the past few years has racked up nearly 4.5 million views. While all of that was going on, I would also post some of my original songs on SoundCloud. One of my songs “Firefly Lullabies” did really well there, so I decided to find someone to produce it.

Now, “Firefly Lullabies” has over 2 million streams on Spotify alone. All in all, the Youtube channel that I decided to start 7 years ago was the reason why I ever even thought of pursuing music in the first place. Now, I attend Belmont University where I take classes on how to make music and it’s been incredible. I’ve been given so many amazing opportunities since starting this journey in the music world and I’m so happy to be doing what I love. I have a band now and we’ve been playing live shows both inside and outside of Nashville, which has been super cool. I have a new single called “Over and Over Again” coming out on January 19th, and I am currently working on a full-length album that is set to release by this summer.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have faced a few struggles as a person who was introduced to this industry at a very young age. As my channel grew, I felt a lot of pressure to do better and constantly post new content. Because of that, and a lot of other personal struggles I faced, I kind of stopped posting for a little while. I felt that if what I was posting wasn’t perfect that I would let people down and I didn’t want to do that.

As a young teenage girl, it was hard for me to handle the pressure of something I once did just for fun. I still feel that pressure, but I have definitely slowly but surely found ways to overcome that fear of disappointing people. I’ve learned that you just have to do what you love and put it all out there and work for it because, without that, there won’t be any growth!

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a singer-songwriter and I specialize in Indie-Pop music. I would say that I am mostly known for writing songs that pull on listeners’ heartstrings. I am most proud of how I can portray certain feelings and emotions through lyrics. That’s one thing I am constantly striving to accomplish when writing; to make people feel a certain specific way when they hear the song. I feel like the gap that I most significantly fill in the songwriting/artist community largely has to do with my songwriting. Ever since I was little, writing and making up songs has been something that’s very cathartic for me. Nowadays I feel like my musical superpower is being able to be very authentic in my writing, and deliver an honest message to my listener all packaged within an alluring melody and structure. Most times, this is what I find draws me to the music that I love, and I feel like it is the most important thing for every artist to set themselves apart.

Genre-wise, I like to describe my sound as very malleable to the emotion that my lyrics command, while maintaining a pop-centric motive to everything. My producer and I have recently been dabbling with sounds pulling from the worlds of folk, dance/synth-pop, some post-punk/shoegaze, and generally all fields of indie music!

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most to me is the energy that my art can bring to the people that happen to hear it. I wish I could say I make music without a care in the world about the public perception of it, but like most musicians, it can be a struggle sometimes for me to paint a positive picture in my head of how people hear my songs. Of course, this is a struggle as old as music itself, but I like to try to approach it in a positive light. I am very confident in the music I am going to be putting out in the coming months, and that makes me very excited.

Rather than being worried about if people “like” it or not, the most important thing to me about doing this with my life is the impact I have on people. I try to shine a focused mental light on comments and messages that have a genuine reaction, alluding to a way that the songs have had a positive impact on someone’s real, day-to-day life.

Everyone needs a song every now and then to hit the right spot, pull them out of something, or get them inspired to live this thing we call life. The fact that I can potentially be on the front end of that inspires me so much!

Contact Info:

• Website: avabeathard.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avabeathard/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ava.beathard.5/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/avabeathard
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/heyitsava
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/heyitsava-828890643
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7hwnSMEIzb8Ry5i69tubcu?si=1IH9gwtkTZCjD3L9iRoKIQ 

Image Credits
Sam Wilson and Elizabeth Marsh